


Adagio for Violin

by spacemutineer



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-12
Updated: 2011-03-12
Packaged: 2017-10-16 22:19:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemutineer/pseuds/spacemutineer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The violin is a conduit, his form of expression for what cannot be said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adagio for Violin

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Granada-verse story and was inspired by [Adagio for Tron](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFIXKXYfEy0) by Daft Punk from the Tron Legacy soundtrack. It is an exquisite instrumental piece and I couldn't help imagining Holmes playing it silhouetted against the window of their sitting room at night, particularly the beautiful violin solo at the end (about 3:07 in the YT video).

He plays when he knows the doctor can hear him.

Sometimes it is in the mid-morning, and Holmes picks up his violin out of sheer boredom. The useless newspaper lies cast aside on the floor where he had flung it in disgust. Watson is nibbling on toast and a soft-boiled egg, watching through the window down to the street below as a cabbie argues vociferously about a fare with a rotund passenger. The doctor chuckles quietly at the blustering, red-faced passenger, crumbs from the toast catching in his moustache as he does. He brushes them away quickly and retrieves his notebook to thumb through, looking for something or anything of interest to mention. He comes up empty as expected and returns his attention to breakfast.

Holmes intends to be angry and starts to attack the strings to express it, but Watson keeps appearing in the corner of his eye. He is starting to laugh openly now at the cab man and his positively vibrating fare, who have attracted the attention of a very put-upon policeman. It is increasingly difficult to suppress half a fleeting smile at Watson's rising glee and becomes utterly impossible to do so once he manages to cover himself in toast crumbs as he giggles merrily. The violin sings out boisterously, and Holmes takes a flourishing turn about the room, sweeping his long legs around. As he spins to a stop, the tails of his coat swirl around him. He is laughing when his eyes meet the doctor's. His jaunty tune pauses for just a moment, then picks back up again even more energetically than before, filling the air with bright, crisp sound.

  
Sometimes it is in the blackest of night, in the smallest hours. The case's solution remains agonizingly out of reach with scattered bits of evidence and various detritus strewn throughout the room, under chairs and piled on tables. Holmes has been pacing for hours, stalking the room with tense, agitated grace. He has too much energy inside him to think straight, too much frustration to put the pieces together properly. This pent-up energy is devouring him from the inside and his mind seeks any release it can devise. Inevitably it turns to Watson, lying still and half-asleep directly above him upstairs.

Images flash of fervent hands pushing shoulders into the soft bed. Warm, wet mouths contrasting sharply with cool skin. Fingertips dancing across the doctor's broad chest and bravely won scars. Holmes grabs at the first tactile object he can find around him. He strokes the Stradivarius with the bow roughly and rhythmically, but increasingly atonally. The blatant inferiority of this substitute begins to infuriate him. He is being cheated. They are being cheated. They are being forbidden any connection that might exist by the deluded morality of so-called gentlemen with their self-described honor and their ever present threat of the dock or worse. It is a trap with no exit and he will not consider putting Watson at risk from it. With the bow, he channels his mounting anger directly into sound. His fingers flutter and shake as they strangle the noise out of the violin. The instrument screams under his touch and its piercing notes shatter like glass in the air. Neither of them will sleep tonight.

  
Sometimes it is just after sunset, and a half-empty bottle of sherry stands tall on the table as Holmes plays. Watson's white shirtsleeves are neatly rolled up his arms as he stretches lazily across the settee, his body languid and relaxed. He listens contentedly, eyes closed, dreaming through the music Holmes creates. The doctor's hand is draped across his chest and it moves gently in time with his breathing and the slow beat of his heart. He is a sight of almost painful beauty, and Holmes is inexorably drawn to him.

He is so close. It would take little to reach for him, to caress his cheek, to drop a thousand small kisses onto his hands. To finally tell him what Holmes has felt since the first day they met; that no one has ever had this effect on him, that Watson has touched something inside him he wasn't even aware he had. But Holmes' hand remains on the bow as it must. These are words that can never be spoken. Instead, he closes his eyes and gives himself to the violin, imbuing its rich sound with all of his passion, all of his soul.

He pulls the bow across the strings as delicately as he wishes he could touch his friend. The notes are drawn long and slow. This is his most intimate expression: his adagio for violin, a song of love and a song of mourning. The instrument weeps elegantly as music fills the space between them. Into it he pours his heart, attempting vainly to convey everything that he feels so deeply but can never put into words, for both their sakes. He plays this song as the evening settles in as he has played it a hundred times before and surely will play it a hundred times hence, when he knows the doctor can hear him. His only hope and his only fear is that someday as he plays Watson will understand.


End file.
